22nd July, Parque Tayrona, Colombia

22nd July, Parque Tayrona, Colombia

After 4 days in Santa Marta we were headin to Parque Tayrona. We woke up early to go to the supermarket and stock up on some supplies; cereal bars, peanuts and crackers! We then headed across town towards the market, which was like a carnival, to catch the bus to the park. The bus took about an hour and dropped us off next to a few old shops/shacks. At the entrance we paid the 31000 entrance fee then jumped in a locals jeep for 2000 which took us further into the park. We walked through the jungle in the swealtering heat, exacerbated by the 100% deet we had smothered ourselves in to fight off the hoards of insects. On our walk through the jungle we heard volley of screeching high above or heads and saw a pack of howler monkeys fighting in the trees.

We continued along the trail, past the 6-lane wide lines of marshing ants, scurrying lizards and black frogs and eventually came into a clearing and onto a campsite. The beach lay just beyond. The long trek had been worth it for the incredible views, the beach was rugged but beautiful, like something out of jurrassic park. We walked along the beach and found a campsite where a little grumpy old man called andres was renting hammocks. After our bad experiences with hammocks in playa blanca we werent over entushed about sleeping in them again, but they were cheap at 2.80 pounds each. we dumped our stuff and walked out onto the first beach, Arricifes. we sat admiring the view and took some pictures whilst relaxing on the sand most of the afternoon. Although picturesque, there were signs warning that the sea was too dangerous to swim in and judging by the size of the waves we could see why. The waves crashed and ran about 8 meters up the shore, causing us to continually revise the position of our picnic blanket.

We headed up the beach to the next bay, la piscina, but as it was getting late we didnt go to far. We returned to our campsite and tucked into a gourmet dinner for two of crackers (salted), a ceral bar and a mango, washed down with a bottle of 2009 still mineral water, slightly chilled!. There was little to do as it got dark so we sat and chatted to a few other people then headed to the dreaded hammocks. We covered ourselves in more reppellent and put on some socks to protect our ankles. I wasn't looking forward to the close proximity of the bug net to our faces as the heat was unbearable and iIt was a long time before we drifted off.

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